Abyss-mal Cinema Theme Week

Our (not at all) complete guide to sub-aquatic horror and thrillers!

LORDS OF THE DEEP (1989)

ENDLESS DESCENT (aka THE RIFT; 1990)

THEY BITE (1996)

DEEPSTAR SIX (1989)

LEVIATHAN (1989)

THE EVIL BELOW (1989)

SECTOR 7 (2011)

CREATURES FROM THE ABYSS (1994)

DEEP GOLD (2011)

30,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (2007)

DEEP BLUE SEA (1999)

DEEP SHOCK (2003)

THE RIG (2010)

DARK DESCENT (2002)

THE RIFT (aka ENDLESS DESCENT; 1990)

Read More

Listomania: A Double Dose of Dolph with a Side of Adkins

To celebrate our new makeover (all praise goes to Tom on that end), I’ve decided to do a Listomania post.  That sound you just heard was Tom fainting.  So here are a few smaller reviews of recent views.

We’re big fans of both Scott Adkins and Dolph Lundgren here at Video Junkie.  Adkins is the new breed of action hero (sadly, still waiting for major studios to notice him), while Lundgren is a (mostly) consistent veteran from the action packed ‘80s.  Their first time onscreen in THE EXPENDABLES 2 (2012) didn’t really give us much of them together, but their subsequent vehicle UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING (2012) blew our socks off.  So when a reteaming on another film being made in China was announced, we stocked up on sock garters.  Unfortunately, this is as far from their previous film as possible.

LEGENDARY (2013) – Crypto-zoologist Travis Preston (Adkins) spends his time traveling the globe looking to discover nature’s hidden animals.  The film opens with him and his crew in Russia tracking a species of super-bear. Along for the hunt is tracker/bounty hunter Harker (Lundgren), who is more concerned with bagging both the big game and credit. Naturally, this combination ends in the death of young student at the hands…er, claws of the bear and Preston feeling his career and enthusiasm suffer.  All of that changes when a lawyer (James Lance) shows up offering Preston a big-time job for an anonymous client to help find a monster scurrying around the hills of rural China.  Seems an industrial group was setting up a pipeline and didn’t count on a salamander-like thing the size of two cars chomping down on their workers.  Preston and his team arrive at the location and quickly find out that this aquatic beast isn’t their biggest problem as Harker is also on the scene in an official capacity and not to happy to share any perceived glory.

Fans hoping for the non-stop, martial arts action Adkins displayed in films like UNDISPUTED III (2010) or NINJA: SHADOW OF A TEAR (2013) will definitely be disappointed in this film. Chosen by Adkins to be more of a downtime project (he was recovering from knee surgery) this is more of an adventure with more in common with a 1950s dinosaur flick.  It isn’t bad by any means and flows pretty quickly through its 92 minute running time (the film actually ends at 85 minutes and we get 7 minutes of end credits).  Adkins is fine in his role and Lundgren does his patented “guy who kills people” routine that involves him speaking slower.  The problem with the film is it exists in a world where it doesn’t really fit in.  Co-funded by a Chinese company, the $12 million dollar budget ensures it can’t compete with something like GODZILLA (2013) and the serious, non-snarky tone won’t allow for viewings from people who like their cult films fed to them a la SHARKNADO 2: THE SECOND ONE (2013).  That second fact is reinforced with some wonky creature CGI work.  In small shots, it is pretty effective, but when we finally get to the monster’s cave in the end the beast gets too much exposure and ends up looking like the GEICO gecko on steroids with a bad skin rash.

So who was this ultimately made for?  Well, lots of Chinese investors (the end credits boast a jaw dropping 22 producers!) for one and probably Adkins and Dolph fans who have no life and will watch anything they are in…oh wait, that’s me!  Recommend only if you suffer from that latter affliction.  Just do not go in expecting anything as cool as that Japanese cover above (there is nary a helicopter in sight!).

BATTLE OF THE DAMNED (2013) – One of Dolph’s releases previous to LEGENDARY – and in between a couple of those terrible Giorgio Serafini vehicles that even I, a Dolph-addict, can’t stomach – was this sci-fi/horror hybrid. Again, while a far cry from the insanity of John Hyam’s UNIVERSAL SOLDIER sequel, this is another fun time killer that sees Dolph in a futuristic land of the dead.

Following a zombie/virus outbreak, an unnamed city is teeming with the dead and quarantined. Major Max Gatling (Lundgren) is hired by an industrialist to head into the city to find and save his estranged daughter, Jude (Melanie Zanetti). Damn, you know you got family problems when your kid would rather spend time in a zombie-infested city than with you.  And you know your script is lacking when you rip off ESCAPE FROM L.A. (1996).  Gatling assembles his team and they head out on their apocalyptic mission.  They find their target in relatively quick order, but soon find out she is living with a whole crew of survivors and that she is (cue the strings) pregnant.  With the numbers of attacking undead increasing, Gatling decides to rewire some robots to become zombie killers. Why he is the first one to think of this is beyond me.

As the blurb says on the cover there: “Explosions, bullets, zombies, and robots…”  Jeez, if they had thrown in “boobs” I think we might have the perfect film.  To be honest, I don’t give a damn about 99% of the zombie films nowadays as that subgenre has been beaten to death (haha).  Yeah, my 15-year-old self is weeping right now.  A zombie film really needs a hook to get me to bite and I think they may have done it with explosions, bullets, and robots.  Oh, and Dolph!  Writer-director Christopher Hatton previously made the robot-heavy ROBOTOPOLIS (2011), so he definitely had the credentials for this and he manages to get some effective and haunting visuals from his locations in Malaysia. As mentioned earlier, this isn’t top tier Lundgren but keeps going at a quick enough pace that I was never bored.

 

Read More

Welcome to the new site!

Break out the party favors (you know, like whiskey and sharp objects)! Our site has undergone a major overhaul and while there still are a few tweaks that need to happen, we are pleased as a dog with hambone and two tails.

Plus we have have a direct link that you can use to get to the site without having to remember that really long blogspot link.

www.videojunkie.org

Read More

Sci-Fried Theater: SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO (2010)

As much as I don't care for anime in general, for some inexplicable reason I find live-action films based on them to be fascinating. Sometimes it has been because of the fact that it is based on one of the few anime's that I like. FIST OF THE NORTH STAR (1995), by all rights, should have been incredible. Maybe Gary Daniels isn't the living embodiment of Kaneshiro, but it's freaking Gary Daniels! I weep for those of you who only know him as the guy who gets cold-cocked by Steve Austin in THE EXPENDABLES (2010). Regardless of whether you enjoyed the anime or not, everyone can agree FIST was a train wreck. Because of the budget, I'd say it was a Lionel train wreck.

This brings us to Toho's attempt at bringing the hugely popular anime "Space Battleship Yamato" (1974-) to the big screen in in live action form with modern technology. "Yamato" was so popular back in the '70s that it was one of many that got licensed and dubbed into English for US morning children's television under the tile "Starblazers". Of course the last time I saw the Battleship Yamato was during Daiei's mind-liquefying epic SPACE MONSTER GAMERA: SUPER MONSTER (1977). Again, I feel this makes me the perfect person to talk about the Toho live action film. No prejudice, I take it on its own terms. I just wish those terms were more enjoyable. Do you like how I justified my ignorance of the source material?

Starting off with the obligatory JEDI-inspired dogfight, except here it's cranked up to the level heretofore unseen in anything other than a game of "Ikaruga". If only more pew-pews equaled something more interesting. By contrast, SPACE CAPTAIN HARLOCK (2013) took the space battle and moved it in to the realm of THE ROAD WARRIOR (1982) with massive spectacles of twisting metal and vehicular debris.

I think we've played this game before.

Now that the STAR WARS homage is over, we can now get down to business. The year is 2199 and the Earth Defense Forces are being decimated near Mars by aliens called the Gamilas. For the past five years the Gamilas have been bombing Earth from orbit with meteors that have turned the planet's surface into a desert wasteland, saturated with radiation. What is left of the planet's population now lives underground in squalid bunkers that clearly did not have showers installed. One of the few of the more rugged humans, ex-pilot Susumu Kodai (Takuya Kimura), makes trips out on to the earth's surface in a gas mask (which apparently prevents radiation contamination) to forage for scrap metal that he can sell to the EDF in exchange for drugs and likker. Where the EDF is getting dope and alcohol from when there is a war on is never explained. Perhaps there was some sort of Federal Reserve set up for just such an occurrence. On his most recent trip, Kodai is nearly hit by a meteor that knocks his gas mask off, which should have given him a lethal dose of radiation. He discovers that the meteor is actually an alien device of some kind and takes it to the EDF for analysis.

It turns out that this device is a message transmitter showing the location of a planet called Iskandar. The military decides that since humanity can't hold out much longer, that they should send a ship manned with volunteers out to see what the message is all about. Oh, and they will lie to the public about it, saying that Iskander has a device that will eliminate the radiation from the Earth as a morale booster. This is not a spoiler as it is handed to the audience in the very beginning of the film. There will be none of that annoying "what will happen next" stuff here. More like "who will have a heartfelt discussion with whom".

After hearing that the EDF is looking for suckers - err, I mean volunteers, Kodai signs up with the EDF again. This puts him face to face with Captain Okita who was the only survivor of the last battle with the Gamilas, and who Kodai believes is responsible for his brother's dead. Oooooh, some drama comin'! Not only that, but Kodai's ex-subordinates, the Black Tiger squad, are a little cranky that he quit on them. Some more than others as far-too-pretty-to-be-such-a-badass, Yuki (Meisa Kuroki), slugs down both shots and men with equal enthusiasm. Oooooh, more drama comin'!

After literally resurrecting the Battleship Yamato from the Earth, the crew set out to find Iskandar. Just getting on the road proves difficult as the team need to take on a whole mess of Gamila fighters in an asteroid field that feels a bit like STAR WARS, but I'm pretty sure was inspired by "Star Fox 64". This fray ends up leaving Yuki unconscious in a wounded fighter. In order to save her, Kodai hops in a fighter flies above her and has her hit the ejection seat which launches her into space toward Kodai's ship that extends robot arms to catch her and keep her in place as they fly back to the Yamato. In space. When they get back on board the Yamato, Kodai feels that the best way to revive her is by screaming her name in her face.

Yep, played it too.

When this movie isn't cribbing its sense of reality from the anime, it borrows heavily from STAR TREK. In particular THE NEXT GENERATION. When the ship is hit by an enemy attack, sparks fly out of the ceiling and crew members are thrown around the bridge like they suddenly went on the Universal Tours Earthquake attraction. The ship's engineer is a fountain of wisdom and at one point he gives her all she's got, until it can't take any more (not in those exact words, but close). Also every scene is accompanied by melancholy violins and majestic swells and no situation is too urgent and dangerous for an emotional discussion about relationships. I'm sure a lot of this played better as an animated TV show, particularly the AI PDA that Kodai chats with and turns into a robot during a crucial moment. Also the final battle must have played better too as an anime as in a live action movie. I'd say it looks like someone has been playing too much "Halo", but it's probably more accurate to say that the folks at Bungee watched too much "Yamato".

"Halo" anyone?

It seems like, yet again, Toho is playing it safe. In the same way their recent GODZILLA films felt completely by-the-numbers, this too feels confined to a strict set of rules from which there will be no divergence. Granted, it does appear to be incredibly faithful to the source material, which is something Hollywood would have never done. Even so, it still feels like Hollywood in Asian-face. We get the generic Hollywood score that never picks up tempo even during action scenes, we have a BRAVEHEART speech when things are looking grim, we have the old conflict-turns-to-romance sub-plot, we have morality lessons and life lessons. We find out that with great power comes great... oh, you get the idea.

I think this illustrates the mindset of Toho vs. Toei. Toei has always been a bit of a risk taker. Retooling the beloved HARLOCK took balls, giving audiences exactly what Toei thought they wanted and then gambling on a darker, more adult vision of the amine. Sometimes a gamble doesn't pay off, but Toei is willing to take the risk and hope that baby gets a new pair of shoes. Toho gives exactly what they think audiences want and not a penny more. That said YAMATO was only just released this year in the US on DVD and blu-ray and it seems to have made a lot of American fans of STARBLAZER ecstatic. So if you grew up watching the show or just like emotional character dramas in space, there's a good chance it will fit you like a pair of well-worn space boots. All others take heed.

Read More

Kung Fu Treachery: THE PROTECTOR 2 aka TOM YUM GOONG 2 (2013)

Wow, what a difference a decade makes.  It doesn’t seem that long ago, but eleven years back a complete unknown from Thailand named Tony Jaa burst onto the martial arts movie scene with the action flick ONG BAK (2003).  I can still remember the rumblings I heard on martial arts movie forums and waiting for a Quicktime trailer to finish loading on the official movie site.  The hype behind Jaa and his amazing prowess promised “no stunt doubles, no special effects, no computer, no strings!” It was hardly anything original (Jackie Chan was taking kicks to the head since Bruce Lee’s era), but a welcome reprieve to the wire fu era that was becoming so ridiculous that folks seemed to be floating rather than fighting.

ONG BAK lived up to the hype and delivered some hard hitting (literally) action scenes.  Jaa’s skill level was off the charts and his mentor/stunt coordinator Panna Rittikrai made the most of his protégé’s talents as the guy flipped over and skidded under anything and everything.  The film proved to have so much buzz that it got a US theatrical release. Jaa quickly reteamed with Rittikrai and ONG BAK’s director Prachya Pinkaew for TOM YUM GOONG (2005). Again telling a simple story of a guy looking for revenge, this second collaboration – with 5 times the budget – topped the earlier film in nearly every way.  The fight scenes were jaw dropping, including a one-take fight scene that vaulted up into the top 5 greatest action scenes ever put on film.  The film was a smashing success in Thailand (second only to a Harry Potter film as the top box office draw that year) and got a US release in 2006 by the Weinsteins, who, naturally, cut the film and gave it the generic title THE PROTECTOR. The future looked bright for Jaa and then the chaos came.

Jaa felt strangled by his film company, Sahamongkol Film, when they wanted more ONG BAK films.  He agreed, but only if he could do it his way.  He left Pinkaew behind and opted to do ONG BAK 2 on his own.  Tales of this chaos for the neophyte director during this production are legendary and, when the film ran way over schedule and budget, Rittikrai was brought in to help fix things. This resulted in not one, but two prequels that had literally nothing to do with ONG BAK, unless you count the martial arts.  I still contended that there is a good film buried in ONG BAK 2 (2008) – which features one hell of a finale – and ONG BAK 3 (2010) if someone were to edit out all the filler. Sadly, this period represented a waste of some of Jaa’s prime years and Sahamongkol still had him under contract.  With the ONG BAK prequels performing so-so at the box office, it came as no surprise when they announced a reunion with Pinkaew for TOM YUM GOONG 2. Unfortunately, trying to catch lightning in a bottle is about as easy as taking one of Jaa’s knees to the face and acting like it didn’t hurt.  Oh, it hurts alright…just like this film.

Seven years after the events of the first film, we find Kham (Jaa) living back in his village with his now-grown elephant, Kohrn. Oddly, the folks in the village don’t like him now, admonishing him for teaching kids martial arts and the havoc created by his elephant.  His only friend seems to be a village idiot who likes to build devices that shock people.  One day a businessman named Mr. Vilawandei (Adinan Buntanaporn) shows up and offers Kham a fortune for his elephant.  Oh jeez, didn’t he read about what happened seven years ago in the papers?  Kham politely rejects his offer and, wouldn’t you know it, soon finds his elephant kidnapped…again.  Yes, the filmmakers couldn’t be bothered to come up with a new plot device to get Kham into action.  He heads to Vilawandei’s to whoop ass, but finds the businessman dead in his office. Not only that, but he has to deal with the guy’s fighting niece twins, Ping-ping (Jeeja Yanin) and Sue-sue (Theerada Kittiseriprasert), and his old pal, Sgt. Mark (Petchtai Wongkamlao aka Mum Jokmok).  Wait, what is a cop from Australia doing in Thailand?  Ah, forget it.

Turns out the real killer – who uses a deadly triple punch death combo – works for another deadly businessman named LC (Wu Tang Clan rapper RZA). You know he is bad news because he has fighters, who he has tattooed in a ranking system, beat each other up for his enjoyment. Kham will soon meet him, but not before the film’s first big action scene as he takes on a group of bikers on the rooftop of an apartment building. Right off the bat you know Pinkaew has jumped the shark as this scene is filled with some really bad CGI (look at the fake looking motorcycles that fly toward Jaa) and he enhances Jaa’s stunt work with computer effects.  No, goddamn it, just no.  This scene is antithesis of everything Jaa stood for when he made his big splash and is easily one of the worst action scenes he’s been involved with.  The true irony here is that Pinkaew also includes an amazing bit in here where the camera is strapped to Jaa as he leaps from one building to another, giving the audience a great POV experience.  Sadly, this is a tiny silver lining in a scene that relies on bad green screen work and tons of wire work.

Anyway, Kham continues looking for his elephant and the now kidnapped Sgt. Mark while the martial arts twins track his every move.  He is drawn to a shipyard and soon meets the mysterious kung fu killer, No. 2 (Marrese Crump). Showing his ability, No. 2 kills off Sue-sue with his patented killer fist and gets into it with both Ping-ping and Kham. Now here is the film’s cruelest irony – the fights between No. 2 and Kham are really good. Pinkaew allows the fights to tell the story and actually breathe, meaning longer takes without too many cuts. It proves that Jaa still has it and showcases Crump’s well-honed abilities as well. Kham ends up being defeated and captured, not due to No. 2’s skills, but the fact that Ping-ping incapacitated him with an acupuncture needle.  So Kham finally gets to meet LC and you figure he has kidnapped him because he wants the best fighter in the world to entertain him.  Nope.  Seems he kidnapped Kham and his elephant so he could use him as an assassin to murder some bigwig.  To get him to comply, they have attacked a shocking device – made by the village idiot, who was a turncoat – to Kham’s back and around his elephant’s neck.  Well, I guess someone saw POLICE STORY II (1988). Kham is now running around town trying to kill someone, while Interpol searches for him.  But wait, there’s more!  The bad guys are also going to use the elephant as a bomb to assassinate a political leader coming to Thailand for peace talks. Oh, jeez, I give up…kind of just like the screenwriter did.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, THE PROTECTOR 2 is an absolute mess of a film. The screenplay makes so little sense that you have to wonder if they even filmed with a completed screenplay. Also, the acting from a majority of the cast is abysmal.  Now I know RZA is known for having a great respect for the old school kung fu flicks from the 1970s, but he is a horrible actor.  Remember how your jaw dropped when you first saw Jaa kick a guy flush in the head?  That is how your jaw will drop when you see RZA’s acting skills on display. There is one bit where he has scene with a Thai female assassin who is speaking English phonetically…and she comes off looking like the better thespian!  Even worse, the finale has RZA taking on Jaa one-on-one in a fight and that is just ridiculous. The poor Thai co-stars don’t fare as well either.  The return of Petchtai Wongkamlao seems like nothing but a contractual obligation and, while I’m not the biggest fan of Thai comedy, he is given absolutely nothing funny to do.  Faring even worse is female martial artist Jeeja Yanin, who burst onto the scene in Pinkeaw’s CHOCOLATE (2008).  The idea of her teaming up with Jaa had action fans salivating, but she is also given little to do other than show up and saves Jaa’s ass now and then.  She literally has one line.  To add insult to injury, the filmmakers also gave her an unattractive bowl cut.

Now don’t get me wrong, no one is going to watch a Jaa movie for the intricate plotting or Oscar worthy acting.  We are there for amazing fights and to watch the human highlight reel wow us with some marvelous moves. And there is the film’s biggest problem.  Whereas the first film set a new standard for insane action, this one sets a new low for Jaa’s career. You might want to sit down for this one, but Pinkaew relies so heavily on computer FX in this one that it completely ruins the experience.  And I’m not just talking about during action scenes involving cars and motorcycles.  Most of Jaa’s work here is computer enhanced and that is a crushing blow.  It is like seeing Telly Savalas in a toupee or Charles Bronson in drag.  It just ain’t right. Jaa’s entire foundation was built on the Panna Rittikrai school of hard knocks.  In ONG BAK, when he kicked someone while his legs were on fire, he really kicked them while his legs are on fire. When he jumped up and went knees first into a dude, he was really doing it.  One of the great scenes in THE PROTECTOR is when Jaa fights Lateef Crowder and Nathan Jones inside a burning building.  They set that up with real flames all around them, making the danger almost leap off the screen.  So imagine my heart sinking when they do that again, but with a room covered in CGI flames. And I’m not talking good computer rendering either, I’m talking stuff that the SyFy Channel execs would look at and mock.  Even worse, they do an homage to the ONG BAK “feet on fire” stunt and, even if Jaa really had his feet on fire, you can’t tell because it is lost in a CGI fire mess.  I haven’t felt this sad since Brett Ratner bragged about how he introduced Jackie Chan to the idea of greenscreen. Pinkaew ends up making a Hollywood wannabe flick with the budget less than what Keanu Reeves gets paid and forgets his biggest asset is his star.

Thankfully, there is still hope. Jaa is now free from Sahamongkol and doing his own stuff. While he will make his Hollywood debut in a supporting role in the upcoming THE FAST AND FURIOUS 7 (2015), he has a much more interesting project in the upcoming SKIN TRADE, where he co-stars with Dolph Lundgren and Michael Jai White.  An early trailer promises some great fights and that is really all we ask. A notion completely lost on Pinkaew and company is that Jaa is the special effect that audiences want to see. Hopefully it is nothing but up from here for Mr. Jaa.  It shouldn’t be too hard as THE PROTECTOR 2 gave him a new low.

Read More

Sci-Fried Theater: SPACE PIRATE CAPTAIN HARLOCK 3D (2013)

There are folks that absolutely love anime stuff. Be it "Sailor Moon", "Ghost in the Shell" or "Appleseed", some folks are obsessed. Back in the late '80s I would watch one here or there after being blown away by AKIRA (1988) at a midnight screening. About that time I got an unsubtitled bootleg tape of an amazingly over the top, incredibly graphic anime titled "The Wandering Kid", better known now as "Urotsukidoji" (1989). Some years later it was released in the States with subtitles and I discovered that aside from the incredibly graphic, acid-trip visuals there was an fascinating and complicated story going on as well. Other than that "Fist of the North Star" was the only thing that really held my attention.

In a sharp contrast to my usual ranting about the dire state of modern cinema, I have to say that computer animation is a whole different breed and for some reason, I dig it. Since I am not an anime fan, I have never actually sat down and watched more than a few minutes of the much beloved "Space Pirate Captain Harlock" anime series', but I had to check out some of the different movies and episodes after watching this. Because of my lack of prior worship, I feel I am perfectly suited to review the new CG animated movie. Why? Because I come into it with few preconceived expectations and will not end up being that guy on an internet message board who is bitching about how the characters aren't exactly right, the back-story is a little different, a costume got slightly changed or the plot is too complicated.

You know who you are.

It's true that this new SPACE PIRATE CAPTAIN HARLOCK movie does have a slightly complicated plot that is revealed over the course of the movie. This is pretty typical for Japanese sci-fi and I will try to keep it as spoiler-free as possible, but since they don't adopt the lazy Hollywood tactic of having a couple of people standing around in the beginning of the film having a conversation that explains the entire plot to the audience, that will probably be difficult. Fair warning.

In the Earth's future mankind has spread across the galaxies inhabiting other planets and killing off the indigenous populations until a movement arises to return to Earth. Unfortunately, the Earth ruling body, the Gaia Council, makes it illegal for ex-pats to return to the planet starting a massive war between the Gaia Council forces and the off-world human warlord fleets. At the end of this brutal and lengthy conflict, the Gaia Council makes Earth a sacred zone that no one is allowed to return to under penalty of death.

Hollywood CG movies wished they looked this good.

A young man named Yama (Haruma Miura), manages to become accepted as a new recruit aboard the infamous pirate ship the Arcadia. Once among the ranks, we quickly discover that Yama is a covert operative working for the Gaia Council, whose mission is to uncover Captain Harlock's (Shun Oguri) plans and kill him. Presumably with plenty of prejudice as near the end of the war, Harlock stole a battleship from the Council. He also had one of the last remaining alien life-forms in the galaxy imbue it with dark matter, which not only allows the ship and Harlock to be practically indestructible, but makes it look really damn cool too. Harlock, is rumored to be immortal, and has been spending the last 100 years collecting warheads from abandoned space stations and mounting them on very specific planets in the galaxy. He has planted 98 out of 100 warheads that he believes, when detonated all at once, will reset time and allow the human race to start again. Naturally the Council doesn't want him to achieve his goal, as they enjoy wielding their power from on high.

Yama, as it turns out, is not acting on his own. His brother, Ezra (Toshiyuki Morikawa), who lost the use of his legs during an accident caused by Yama, has big plans to increase his station with the Council and set Yama up for revenge by sending him out on this mission. If Yama succeeds he will gain power within the council, if he fails, he will be killed by Harlock. Either way it's a win-win situation for Ezra, or so he thinks.

Yama, being pulled both ways by his blind loyalty to his crippled brother and his sudden appreciation for Harlock's own mission, must struggle to figure out which side he is going to take. In between the drama we get plenty of action and some veiled allusions to the WMD cover-ups, as well as the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, which for some reason, continues to be a theme in Japanese cinema.

While there has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the fanboy community, the tide of opinion changed after James Cameron gave it his sound-bite blessing. It's a little annoying as it makes those who enjoyed it look like lemmings, and kind of knocks the legs out from under it. However, I can understand why he praised it, because it's better than anything he has ever done in his career. Setting aside that annoyance, the art-direction is flat-out gobsmacking. I hate to use banalities like "breathtaking", but the visuals are nothing short of that and they go a long way to gloss over some of the more well-worn themes in the story. Because it is a modern mainstream film, there are certain things that come with the territory. At least three characters have to have a scene where they shed a solitary tear. Fortunately it are no excessive histrionics that seem to becoming commonplace in modern sci-fi. I'm not saying emotion has no part in science fiction, but really, does "Doctor Who" really need multiple scenes of sobbing in every episode? I think not.

The ship Arcadia itself has been re-envisioned as a Geiger-esque, skull and gear filled behemoth with a sinister steampunk motif that is so immaculately detailed that much of the nuances are lost in these screenshots. The level of detail is astonishing. The Council's ships, equally detailed, are white and sleek with gold accents as befits their status in the universe. But hey, you say, isn't that the same genesis for the design of the rebel and imperial ships from STAR WARS (1977)? Yes it is. Not only that, but there are many things in HARLOCK that are cribbed straight out of the STAR WARS playbook. There are the requisite orchestrated dog fights, white armored troops engaging in gun battles in spaceship corridors, hell they even lift the concept of the classic space slug-in-the-asteroid scene from THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980). Surely that taints the film's luster? Actually, I don't think so. So many films have borrowed from the original STAR WARS trilogy so many times over the decades, these things have become more like staples of the genre. As long as it is not totally overt, I enjoy STAR WARS rip-offs a lot more than I enjoy the original series anymore. Give me THE HUMANOID (1979) and STARCHASER (1985) any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

The art direction doesn't limit itself to stunning environments and space vessels however, they also go for some serious special effects eye-candy that puts the whole thing over-the-top. One of impressive set-pieces is one of the Council's super-weapons, which is a satellite that crushes neutron stars to create a deadly beam of energy that obliterates everything in its path. While the characters look a little videogameish, presumably to retain an anime feel, the costumes look fantastic, right down to the leather grain on Harlock's collar. Since this is a post-"Dark Knight" film, the filmmakers opt for a less cartoonish tone, drenching the movie in shadows. While I feel this is getting stale in Hollywood live-action films, it suits HARLOCK right down to the ground. It is expected that animated films should be light and breezy because it is assumed that the main demographic is children. While HARLOCK doesn't get bloody or titillating (aside from a few minor scenes), it does take it self seriously and tries to reflect that in its cinematography and narrative.

It's also worth mentioning that while this movie looks fantastic as a flat film, it is absolutely eye-popping in 3D. There are no pop-out effects to speak of, but the spatial sense of depth for every object on the screen is dramatic and adds an extra punch to the already stunning visuals. There are times where it is difficult to follow the subtitles simply because of the gorgeous artwork in this film.

It's a shame that American distributors are so rigid these days with foreign films, or god-forbid an adult oriented 3D animated film. They are so alien and incomprehensible to studio execs and distributors that we are lucky to get them on plain DVD, much less in theaters. It is amazing to think back on 2001 and realize it was a more enlightened time with the lackluster CG animated FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN actually getting a wide theatrical release, opening on no less than 2,649 screens. Sure it was a massive flop, but you'd think 13 years later they would get over it. Particularly since Hollywood keeps writing $150 million checks to the Wachowski brothers who haven't had a hit since 1999.

Read More